If you enjoyed a good book and you're a woman, the critics think you're wrong | Jennifer Weiner | Comment is free | The Guardian

Those juggernaut books have a few things in common: they're written by women; they are read (as is most fiction) mostly by women; and, as they ascend toward peak popularity, perhaps even winning a prize or two, some highbrow critic will announce that they are not literature at all but, in fact, sentimental trash, unworthy of a single honor or accolade, written by bad people and read by awful "or, at least, silly and stupid" fans. Call it "Goldfinching", after Vanity Fair's 2014 yes-but-is-it-art interrogation as to whether Donna Tartt's Pulitzer prize-winning, mega-bestselling book The Goldfinch is or is not literature. It's the process by which a popular and previously well-regarded novel and, more importantly, its readers, are taken to the woodshed, usually by a critic who won't hesitate to congratulate himself on his courage, as if dismissing popular things that women like requires some special kind of bravery - as if it doesn't happen all day, every day.